Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates in general to a section of stairlift guide rail, and a kit for the assembly of a stairlift guide rail.
Description of the Related Art
The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in the background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
Due to the increasingly elderly population and the growing demand for people to stay in their own homes, or return home while having medical treatment, there is an increased demand for stair lifts in domestic housing. This equipment is usually only required for a short period of time.
Traditionally, stairlifts have a rail installed on a staircase and a motorised stairlift unit is provided. The motorised stairlift unit travels up and down the rail to transfer the person with mobility issues up and down the stairs.
Many of the stairlifts have their rail custom made to fit the particular dimensions of a staircase in a house.
Once the utility of the stairlift ceases, the rail is unable to be used in other houses with different dimensions of staircase. This makes the stairlift expensive to install as each rail has to be custom made. Further, it may be difficult or not possible to re-use the guide rails and so is not environmentally friendly.
Such custom rails are made of several custom made lengths of rails of varying shapes such as a straight section to go up a straight section of a flight of stairs and a curved section to go round a curved section of a flight of stairs. These bespoke lengths are made off-site many with mounting brackets being welded onto the guide rail at appropriate positions and delivered to a house for assembly on site. As these sections are bespoke, the “lead-time” (that is the time from survey to eventual installation) may be many weeks.
WO2011/064852 describes a kit for the assembly of a guide rail for a stairlift. This disclosure provides a “kit” comprised of many standard components. This kit of many standard components is then assembled on site. One problem with the guide rail in this document is that the kit comprises many sections with each section being specific for left and right hand curves as well as sections having numerous different angles of curvature. According to this document, a kit would typically comprise 40 curved sections to account for the degree and direction of curvature. This makes the kit very difficult to fit and also requires a large number of different component parts.
It is a aim of embodiments of the present disclosure to address at least these issues.